0:07

It takes more than code to be a great software engineer.

0:10

This is episode 384 of

0:12

the Soft Skills Engineering podcast. I'm your host, Jameson

0:14

Dance. I'm your host, Dave Smith. Soft Skills Engineering

0:17

is a weekly advice show about all of the

0:19

non-technical things that go into the technical field of

0:21

software development. And I could not

0:23

think of anything even remotely clever

0:25

for an intro, so I went back to old

0:27

Reliable, the original intro. You

0:29

did pretty good with that. Thank you. I

0:32

almost got the episode number wrong, though, so.

0:36

There's some kind of universal constant

0:38

that the amount of flubs must

0:40

remain steady. They just, if I

0:43

get one part right, I have to get another

0:45

part wrong. Yeah, it's the conservation of flubs. Yes,

0:47

yeah, exactly. See, I flubbed the

0:50

making up a cool analogy for it. So

0:53

we're on track. Dave, do you

0:55

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every day. I

4:01

said you anytime the the company that is hiring sees

4:03

anything weird at all in your resume They

4:05

assume it's because they suck and will be a

4:07

bad software developer. It's just like a defensive Posture

4:11

that you take on can you believe

4:13

this font family choice bad

4:15

develop? Yeah, exactly. They must suck at

4:17

software development. I Think

4:21

now that I'm saying this I'm pretty sure

4:23

this is how it works. Yeah anything like

4:25

whoa they use Bitbucket

4:27

instead of GitHub for their Bad

4:31

develop time to return to the old

4:33

explanation of everything Which

4:37

is totally wrong and hurts people especially people

4:39

from non-traditional backgrounds I'm not claiming this is

4:41

a good way to do it, but

4:44

in aggregate. This is how it works I'm

4:46

not claiming it's a good way. It's a

4:48

great way to identify bad

4:50

developers They they

4:52

must suck at identifying software developers so

4:59

This is not not too weird, but

5:02

weird enough that you need and you need a reason why

5:04

this is a good thing and makes

5:06

you a better software developer and It

5:09

can be as simple as I really miss

5:11

writing code some

5:13

people really don't enjoy the job

5:15

engineering management and That's

5:18

a pretty compelling narrative because it's a common thing

5:20

that people who are good at Programming

5:22

get promoted to EMs and then don't like it

5:24

or aren't successful You don't have that you you

5:27

like it seem to be successful, but if

5:29

you just really want to write code as your job That's

5:31

a pretty good reason to go back to writing code for

5:33

your job Reason

5:35

number one I want to Yeah,

5:38

I like it. Well you check that box

5:40

easily. Yeah, I thought

5:43

I had another point that I Hinted

5:45

that it's I don't know it's gone. That's cuz you're a

5:47

bad software developer Train

5:52

of thought bad software to bad.

5:54

Yes. Well, if you are a good enough

5:56

software developer You'll be able to remember what

5:58

I was about to say and then say it for

6:00

me. Bad

6:04

software developer, too long to pause. Pause

6:10

too long an interview question. Oh,

6:12

I worry that I can only get EM jobs in the

6:14

future and there are fewer openings. Okay, I do want to

6:16

address this point. It is true

6:18

that there are fewer EM jobs than

6:21

software developer jobs just because of

6:23

how trees work. I

6:26

think it's generally a lot harder to hire an engineering

6:28

manager. I

6:34

feel like the competition is harder

6:36

for the company or harder for the

6:38

employee? Harder for the company.

6:41

I feel like if

6:43

you are a great EM,

6:46

it's a lot easier to stick

6:48

out in the interview process because

6:50

the field is so immature, maybe

6:53

is how I'll put it. There's just a lot

6:55

of people flying by the seat of their

6:57

pants. If you have previous experience, then you

7:00

are better than the median

7:02

in a lot of cases. I guess

7:04

my point is there are fewer roles open, but

7:07

I think the companies

7:09

looking to hire are also more

7:12

entranced by qualified

7:15

people than in a software developer role. Does that

7:17

make sense? I know. I'm

7:20

having a hard time hearing anything. I'm

7:25

just thinking of the times that I have both

7:27

interviewed for an EM role and interviewed people.

7:32

When I was interviewing, I felt like

7:35

I was a big fish in a small

7:37

pond. You

7:39

take meeting notes and you do

7:41

stuff that should be part of the

7:43

job and you know about it. You're

7:46

awesome. We would love to have you. Not

7:49

to say that I'm a perfect EM as

7:51

anyone who has ever worked for

7:53

me will be able to attest. But

7:56

I felt like I was doing pretty great. And

7:58

also when we were interviewing. for

8:01

EMs, I felt like the

8:03

gap between, how do I put it? It

8:05

just felt much more apparent,

8:08

kind of the

8:10

range of abilities and qualifications

8:12

for the role than

8:16

in a software developer role. Interesting.

8:19

Maybe they're, I don't know,

8:21

I don't think I'm making sense because I

8:23

must be a bad software developer. I mean,

8:25

it just feels, it feels less scary. I

8:28

know that there are fewer roles out there,

8:30

but you'll be fine. That's the

8:32

summary of my advice. Well, I'll tell you

8:34

what, like I'll tell you my experience in

8:36

interviewing for engineering management positions. It is that

8:38

the types of questions

8:40

that people ask don't have

8:43

an obvious right or wrong lead

8:45

code style answer. And

8:47

it's not like, get up on the whiteboard and write

8:49

this code and then we'll know you're a good engineering

8:51

manager. You know, it was more like, here's the

8:53

situation, how would you handle it or how have you handled it?

8:56

And if you show, I think what you're

8:58

saying and what I've experienced is that if you show even

9:01

the tiniest bit of

9:03

interest and capacity for doing a

9:06

slightly better than marginal job, somehow

9:09

you stand out. And I think that's a reflection

9:11

of the lack of formal training

9:14

and lack of clear definition on what makes a

9:16

good engineering manager. So someone who shows up and

9:18

seems to be committed to the craft really stands

9:20

out. You must be

9:22

a good software developer because you

9:24

explained that very well. So let's, let's,

9:27

let's, should we hit the question head

9:29

on? Can

9:32

I go back to a software developer role and would someone even

9:34

take me? Well, I've done it.

9:37

Let's see, I've done it once for

9:39

real. And I'm trying

9:41

to think probably multiple times less

9:43

officially. So like, for example,

9:45

I was an engineering director at a mid-sized

9:48

company, software company. And I went

9:50

and interviewed at one of the big fan companies

9:52

and got a job as an individual contributor. And

9:55

honestly, it never came up. The fact that I

9:57

was currently serving as a manager, it

9:59

wasn't even... It was just such a nothing burger.

10:01

I think if you, I think

10:04

if you, if you, if you spun it

10:06

right, it could be a benefit too, because

10:08

a lot of the

10:11

challenging parts of software development are

10:13

things that you deal more with

10:15

as a manager, where you're communicating

10:17

with people or you're managing deadlines

10:19

or dependencies on other teams or

10:22

like, if you have been

10:24

responsible for doing all of that stuff, I

10:26

think you can demonstrate that

10:28

you will be good at it as

10:30

an IC, even if it's not your,

10:33

your job, it's still pretty powerful to

10:35

have a, an

10:37

individual contributor who thinks very

10:39

deeply about the business value of the things that they're

10:41

working on, for example, or, uh, I dunno,

10:44

just, just can, can apply

10:46

some of those skills in an IC role. You

10:50

think I'm a good leader? Wait till you see me

10:52

follow. I

10:57

mean, yeah, that's, I think there's

10:59

some truth to that. I think there is honestly,

11:01

having been in a leadership role, I know what,

11:03

I know more clearly what makes

11:05

a good follower, you know, people who do things like,

11:07

you know, repeat back the instructions to

11:10

you. So it's clear, give you timely status updates.

11:12

So I don't have to go, my manager doesn't

11:14

have to come asking for them. You

11:16

know, there's just so many little things that you

11:19

see on the other side of the management table

11:21

that you really wish your people would do. And then you can just do

11:24

those. And so I honestly do believe that

11:26

having served as an engineering manager will make you a

11:28

much better software engineer, but not, not in the lead

11:30

code sense, just in the working well as

11:32

a team sense. Yeah,

11:34

that's true. That's sort of assuming all the technical

11:36

stuff is there, which is a pretty big assumption

11:38

and part of the concern. If you're worried your

11:41

skills are decreasing because you're an

11:43

EM. I do think

11:45

we've cited this essay

11:47

a bunch, but not for a while. Charity

11:50

majors is a great

11:52

writer and excellent technical leader who

11:54

has written a series of

11:56

blog posts about going back and forth between

11:59

engineering management and. IC roles and made

12:01

a similar point that you'll be better at both of

12:03

them if you kind of bounce back and forth. And

12:05

it's a different career path than if you sort of

12:07

pick one and stick with it, but it

12:09

has advantages and keeps

12:12

your tech skills sharp for when you're in

12:14

an EM role and keeps your leadership skills

12:16

sharp for when you're in an IC role

12:18

and kind of each

12:20

of them feeds the other one. I

12:23

do think it's, well, let

12:25

me ask a question instead of make a

12:27

statement. What do you think about compensation? Would

12:29

you have to take a pay cut? Sometimes,

12:32

yes, sometimes, no. It depends a little bit

12:34

on the situation. So in

12:36

my case, I did not take a pay cut

12:38

and that's because I was moving to a more

12:40

expensive metro area. So I

12:43

did take a spending power cut. You

12:46

did carefully time your

12:50

job change so that the stock compensation

12:52

would be excellent though. Yes. By predicting

12:54

the future. By predicting, yeah, four years

12:56

in the future. Yes.

12:59

That did work out pretty well. Yeah. Yeah,

13:01

I think you're right. If you're going from

13:03

a kind of a similar sized

13:05

company and you're not

13:07

going into a very senior IC role, then

13:10

you'll probably take a pay cut. But if you

13:12

go to a much bigger company or especially one

13:14

of these mega tech companies that are on

13:17

hiring freezes right now, but yeah,

13:20

it's not a good time. If that ends, then yeah,

13:22

you can get a pay bump. But you might take

13:24

a pay cut. I don't know. It's

13:26

probably fine. Or not. Honestly, there's so

13:29

much variability in engineering compensation that you

13:31

could move to a different company and

13:33

find that the individual contributors here all

13:35

make more than even the highest paid engineering managers in my

13:37

last company. I mean, it's just wild how

13:39

big this swing can be. I don't

13:41

think so. Yeah. All right. Have we answered

13:43

the question? Yeah. Long story short, it is

13:45

absolutely no problem to move from an engineering

13:48

management role to a back to an individual

13:50

contributor role. Happens all the time. Typically,

13:52

it's nothing burger, especially if you've been able to

13:54

find some code you can write as

13:57

an engineering manager and do a lot of code review.

13:59

You're going to be just fine. Yes.

14:02

All right. Okay, Dave, do you want to read our next question?

14:04

I do. This comes from an

14:06

anonymous listener who says, I work for a staff augmentation

14:08

company in an African country for a software company in

14:10

New York. I've been with this

14:12

client for the last five years and I have climbed

14:15

up the ladder enough that I can access the company

14:17

financials. I am paid based on my

14:19

location, which is not much after the exchange rate to

14:21

local currency. My pay has not

14:23

increased as I've become more effective. Since

14:26

seeing that info, I don't feel the need to

14:28

go over and beyond for this client anymore. The

14:30

client expects me to be a rock star developer and ship out

14:33

code faster than they can think of more ways

14:35

to make money. My

14:37

enthusiasm has diminished over time and my manager

14:39

has been notified about it. What

14:41

steps would you take to ensure you get reasonable pay

14:44

as a developer earning a location

14:46

based pay? The staff augmentation

14:48

company is run by US citizens. In

14:53

the spirit of this show, I have questions we

14:55

cannot answer. I'm wondering,

14:57

did they see the pay scale for

14:59

their client or the pay scale for

15:02

their staff augmentation company, which I

15:05

presume has people from various

15:07

countries? Yeah. There

15:11

is definitely a chance that if you

15:13

saw a bunch of New York based

15:15

software engineering salaries, you would

15:18

be very surprised at how high they

15:20

are. Yeah.

15:22

I also think if they were the client's salaries,

15:26

that's why your company exists, to

15:28

take advantage of that difference in

15:31

pay. Where they're presumably charging this

15:33

client less than New

15:35

York software engineering salaries, but

15:38

more than they're paying you and that's

15:40

how they make money. So

15:43

I think, yeah.

15:47

But they pay people in New York a lot more at

15:49

this company, then it's going to be a

15:51

lot easier for your staff augmentation company to shrug their

15:54

shoulders and say, like, yep, that's

15:56

why we're here. That's why we exist. That's the business.

15:58

Which then will not give you the outcome you're looking

16:00

for, which is more pay. But

16:03

if it's the other scenario, which is

16:05

that you saw your peers in your

16:07

same location, who are

16:09

theoretically in the same location-based pay band,

16:12

and you notice that they are making a lot more

16:15

than you, that's actually an easier battle to win. Yeah.

16:18

Yeah, it can be really challenging to find out

16:20

that other people who are doing your job are

16:23

making a lot more money than you. The

16:26

good news is that if that's the

16:28

case and they're performing similarly to you,

16:30

there's a really good chance that you

16:32

could make a strong argument and actually

16:35

get your pay increased, especially

16:37

if this is one of those situations where the

16:39

differential is huge. I've

16:42

managed teams where we've got people in

16:45

countries where the cost of living is like, I don't

16:47

know, like one-third the

16:49

cost of living of other countries on

16:51

the same team. Correspondingly,

16:54

the developers in that country make

16:57

one-third of what developers in the

16:59

other country make. What

17:02

that means, though, is it doesn't

17:04

mean you're going to get a 300% raise. But

17:08

what it means is that a

17:10

significant percent increase for your pay,

17:12

like say 20%, is relatively few

17:18

dollars compared to what, say, a 20%

17:20

raise would be for the 3x engineer.

17:25

You can usually make a case for that. This company

17:28

is using a staff augmentation company

17:30

in Africa, presumably because the cost of

17:32

living is lower and the wages

17:34

are lower, so they can get a lot

17:37

more labor for their dollars. Maybe

17:40

it is time to go ask for a raise and maybe you're

17:42

going to have to go over your boss's head because it sounds

17:44

like just telling your boss or your manager that you

17:46

want it. It doesn't sound like that has yielded a lot of

17:48

fruit. This

17:51

is a trend I've seen, actually, over the last 10 years

17:54

that I've been close to staff

17:56

augmentation firms that work overseas in lower cost

17:58

of living places. compared to the United States.

18:01

And what I have noticed is sure enough, the

18:04

salaries have moved up a lot. It

18:06

used to be we would go to a particular country and we

18:08

would get essentially a 50% discount

18:11

on the labor. And now it's more like a

18:13

20 to 30% discount. So

18:16

what that means is that those salaries in

18:18

that country that we're paying have increased by

18:20

about 50% from where

18:23

they started. Yeah. I

18:25

think you have – yeah, there's a couple options

18:27

here. One of them is depends

18:31

on if

18:34

your compensation is a fixed

18:36

amount of local currency or

18:39

a fixed amount of US dollars and –

18:42

yeah, they said New York, so it'd be US dollars, I

18:44

assume. Yeah, probably. That's

18:47

another place where the staff augmentation company

18:49

can be making money

18:52

is if the exchange rate

18:54

is fluctuating such that the dollar

18:56

value of your local compensation is

18:58

decreasing, they might

19:00

be paying you the same amount of local

19:02

currency and just kind of making off with

19:04

the difference. Yeah, which means they

19:06

get the discount. Yeah, exactly. Probably not

19:08

happening. Like most of the time when I've

19:11

made arrangements with overseas foreign currency, we typically

19:13

pay in US dollars because that's

19:15

just normal for us and it works fine. And

19:17

then if there is crazy –

19:19

I know for a fact there are

19:21

some intermediaries that will happily accept your

19:23

fixed amount of US dollars and then

19:26

happily pay out a fixed amount of

19:28

local currency and just keep the extra.

19:30

And they just love inflation. They

19:32

love it. Yeah, they're pumped about it. So

19:35

that's a thing you could do that might

19:38

be different than just saying, please pay me

19:40

more money. It's like, well, just pay me

19:42

the same amount of dollars. And

19:45

just as the exchange rate changes, then change how much

19:48

local currency you pay me. That might be easier

19:50

or harder than just paying you more money though. Yeah,

19:54

yeah, this is tricky because you're

19:56

seeing part of the benefits of a global.

20:00

economy is that you get to work for people on

20:02

the other side of the world, but also

20:05

isn't the point of pay

20:07

that you're paid for the value you provide the

20:09

company. And then is the value you

20:11

provide really 50% or whatever the difference

20:14

is less because you live in this other

20:16

country? Yeah, probably not is the answer. They

20:18

said that you they expect you to be

20:21

a rock star developer, which sounds pretty valuable.

20:25

So you've got like

20:27

these two competing things of the

20:30

value you're providing to the company and

20:32

this expectation that like local

20:35

wages determine what you get

20:37

paid. And if you

20:39

want to make more money, you sort

20:41

of need to break that expectation that like because

20:44

they might even say something like, well, you're getting

20:46

paid a lot for your we looked at salaries

20:48

for for your country and you're actually getting paid

20:51

more than kind of the median. They

20:53

might have reasons why it makes sense. And at the end

20:55

of the day, that's the number that that's the number that

20:57

carries weight because what if someone comes to

21:00

a company like this and says, I want to make more money,

21:02

they will say, look, sorry, they

21:05

won't necessarily say this. But one thing

21:07

that they can reliably say if you

21:09

are overpaid compared to the local

21:11

market is, well, good

21:13

luck on your job hunt. We're going to replace you

21:15

with someone else who we can pay

21:17

less. And

21:20

yeah, and even though what you said, Jameson is true

21:22

that companies should compensate you for the value that you

21:24

produce. That's actually not

21:26

how most compensation is is decided.

21:29

It is decided based on the

21:31

competitive salaries of people like you

21:34

that they can get for they're just always looking

21:36

for cheaper labor. You know, so it's

21:38

just not, you know,

21:40

if if Google, for example, paid all of their

21:42

engineers who work on the

21:44

advertising system would equal to

21:47

the value they get, then every engineer would

21:49

make over a million dollars a year. But

21:52

they don't. I mean, some do, but

21:54

most of them don't. They just get paid the

21:57

absolute minimum that the market will

21:59

allow. Wow, by having someone who's

22:01

willing to step in and say, I'll take that. It's

22:04

like an auction, but you're bidding

22:06

downward. Yeah. Yeah. I'm

22:09

glad you brought that up because that is the perspective

22:11

they're going to bring is like, well, there

22:13

is some cost to them, right? They have to

22:15

train someone new and maybe they won't

22:18

be a rock star, right? You might have

22:20

this special ability that they might not easily

22:22

replace. But if they zoom

22:24

out enough, they might just say, this is like

22:26

a developer in this region of

22:28

the world and they cost X amount and

22:31

yeah. Well,

22:34

so I've just bummed you out. What do you do about

22:36

it? I know. Let me pass it

22:38

over to you, Dave. I mean, I think I would go

22:40

talk to my manager and try to

22:42

understand the economics that are in play here

22:44

because ultimately those are like the

22:47

laws that govern the maximum amount of money

22:49

that you can make are

22:51

the economics of the situation that

22:54

this company engaged with your staff augmentation

22:56

company to serve. So

22:59

if they came to your company

23:01

knowing that they could get development work

23:04

for a dollars per hour that is substantially lower

23:06

than the people in New York City, which I

23:09

believe they did, then you

23:12

have a certain limited window of

23:14

pay range that you can reasonably

23:18

get and it's not the New York

23:20

pay range. It's just

23:22

not. Yeah. So I said before, good

23:24

news, a substantial percentage

23:26

increase for you may not be

23:29

a substantial dollar increase for the

23:31

client. And so it's possible

23:33

that you could get your rates to go up,

23:35

but it all depends on who you are competing

23:37

with for those same wages. So

23:40

long story short, I mean, the way that I would handle this is I

23:42

would talk to my boss and say, what are my options for making more

23:44

money? What do I need to do? You know,

23:46

lay down a clear case just as you

23:48

would anywhere else. What do I need to do to

23:50

make more money? And then execute that plan.

23:53

And the answer might suck. The answer might be, sorry,

23:55

we don't have any options for you. At

23:57

which point you're going to have to. live

24:00

within the economic laws. I'm putting

24:02

the word laws here in quotes, but it's like

24:05

there are governing principles that

24:07

limit how much you

24:09

can control your salary up or down. And

24:12

so you'll have to find a way to creatively grow it

24:14

within those constraints. And one of those

24:16

options might be to find a way to move to New York

24:18

City. If you really want to go

24:21

for that dollar amount with the understanding that

24:23

that will come with extreme costs and of

24:25

course tons of immigration pain

24:27

and other challenges, but

24:29

it could very well be impossible. It

24:32

could be impossible. Yeah. But

24:34

yeah, that is probably the,

24:38

if you can pull it off, the clearest

24:40

way to earn local rates is be local.

24:43

Move to where the local rates are higher. Yep. Which

24:46

typically means then you will need higher costs for

24:48

lawyers. Yeah, that's you. Yeah.

24:51

Well, well, surely we've

24:53

answered it. I hope so. What

24:56

can we do? What? Nothing.

24:59

We're doing it. We're doing our thing. Let me

25:01

retry. We can not do anything. What

25:05

can others do if they would like their own questions

25:07

answered? Go to soft skills.audio and click the ask a

25:09

question button. We want to thank you so much to

25:11

everyone who submits these questions. We love reading them. You

25:13

send so many of them and thank you for all

25:15

the follow-ups people have been sending in. We're going to

25:17

bring those together and start sharing those

25:19

in future episodes so you can hear how

25:22

we did. Did we utterly fail? Hint, usually

25:25

yes. Did we succeed? Hint,

25:28

usually no, but it'll

25:30

be good either way and a good entertaining

25:32

read to hear how our answers ended

25:34

up working. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

25:37

We'll catch you next week.